MicroWave

New York police have defended their actions after a bystander was shot in the head as two officers tackled a fare-evader armed with a knife in a busy subway station.

The man was in critical condition after the shooting at Sutter Avenue L station in Brooklyn on Sunday afternoon. Three others, including the suspect, were wounded.

Millions of Americans will vote this fall – but six Republican justices might have the final say, in a Bush v Gore redux

It’s frighteningly easy to imagine. Kamala Harris wins Georgia. The state elections board, under the sway of its new Trump-aligned commissioners, grinds the certification process to a slow halt to investigate unfounded fraud allegations, spurring the state’s Republican legislature to select its own slate of electors.

Perhaps long lines in Philadelphia lead to the state supreme court holding polls open until everyone has a chance to vote. Before anyone knows the results, Republicans appeal to the US supreme court using the “independent state legislature” (ISL) theory, insisting that the state court overstepped its bounds and the late votes not be counted.

Or maybe an election evening fire at a vote counting center in Milwaukee disrupts balloting. The progressive majority on the state supreme court attempts to establish a new location, but Republicans ask the US supreme court to shut it down.

Maybe that last example was inspired by HBO’s Succession. But in this crazy year, who’s to say it couldn’t happen? The real concern is this: if you think a repeat of Bush v Gore can’t happen this year, think again.

🗳️ Register to vote: https://vote.gov/

Donald Trump on Friday said he does not enjoy running for president and criticized state and federal prosecutors for not offering him plea deals, capping a rough seven days for the Republican presidential nominee.

🗳️ Register to vote: https://vote.gov/

Emmitt Martin III testified he wrongfully told his colleagues that the 29-year-old was a violent offender before they pulled him over and beat him.

Police officers violated protocol when they used excessive force against Tyre Nichols and overstated his actions, a former officer who has pleaded guilty in the case testified.

Emmitt Martin III, who initiated the traffic stop against Nichols, said in federal court Monday that Nichols never posed a threat and that officers downplayed their own actions during the Jan. 7, 2023 encounter, which led to Nichols' brutal beating and subsequent death.

Martin testified he was angry that night because he hadn't yet made an arrest, but then he noticed Nichols driving a little fast as a traffic light was turning red and saw him changing lanes without signaling.

The Iran-backed militant group said handheld communication devices belonging to its members had blown up across the country.

The militant group Hezbollah said Tuesday that pagers belonging to its members had blown up across Lebanon, killing at least eight and injuring more than 2,700, according to the country's Health Ministry.

Iran-backed Hezbollah pinned the blame for the widespread and seemingly simultaneous blasts on Israel, without providing evidence for its claim. Israel did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the accusations and the pager explosions.

More than 200 people were in critical condition after the blasts, Public Health Minister Dr. Firas Abiad told reporters.

Amid what was developing into a nationwide health emergency, Lebanese officials ordered the public to avoid using handheld communication devices.

Mojtaba Amani, Iran's ambassador to Lebanon, was among those injured, according to the country's embassy. In an post on X, it described his injuries as "superficial," and added that Amani was in a good condition.

Nearly half of Republicans say they won't accept the results of the presidential election if their candidate loses, and some of them say they would "take action to overturn" the results, according to data released Tuesday.

About a quarter of Democrats said they wouldn't accept the results if their candidate loses, and fewer Democrats than Republicans said they would "take action to overturn" the results.

The nonpartisan World Justice Project, which keeps an index of how strong the rule of law is in more than 100 countries, gathered the data as part of a larger study. The poll was conducted through online interviews with 1,046 American households between June 10 and June 18.

🗳️ Register to vote: https://vote.gov/

The Senate is set to vote Tuesday on legislation to protect access to IVF as Democrats look to draw attention to Republicans' positions on the issue following former President Donald Trump's statements supporting the fertility treatments.

The package, called the Right to IVF Act, centers on a right to receive and provide IVF services, while working to make the treatments more affordable. The legislation was blocked by Senate Republicans just three months ago.

Now, Democrats are daring the GOP to reconsider their votes, with fewer than 50 days until Election Day.

...

The issue was thrust into the national spotlight early this year, when the Alabama Supreme Court deemed that embryos are children under state law, which prompted providers to temporarily halt fertility treatments in the state. Since then, amid concern about access to IVF in Alabama and beyond, many Republicans have expressed their support for the popular fertility treatments, including Trump in last week's presidential debate.

🗳️ Register to vote: https://vote.gov/

RT, Rossiya Segodnya and others accused of using deceiving tactics on Meta’s apps to carry out influence operations

Facebook owner Meta said on Monday it was banning RT, Rossiya Segodnya and other Russian state media networks, alleging the outlets used deceptive tactics to carry out influence operations while evading detection on the social media company’s platforms.

“After careful consideration, we expanded our ongoing enforcement against Russian state media outlets. Rossiya Segodnya, RT and other related entities are now banned from our apps globally for foreign interference activity,” the company said in a written statement.

Enforcement of the ban would roll out over the coming days, it said. In addition to Facebook, Meta’s apps include Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads.

🗳️ Register to vote: https://vote.gov/

Suspicious packages were sent to election officials in at least six states on Monday, but there were no reports that any of the packages contained hazardous material.

Powder-containing packages were sent to secretaries of state and state election offices in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Tennessee, Wyoming and Oklahoma, officials in those states confirmed. The FBI and U.S. Postal Service were investigating. It marked the second time in the past year that suspicious packages were mailed to election officials in multiple state offices.

The latest scare comes as early voting has begun in several states less than two months ahead of the high-stakes elections for president, Senate, Congress and key statehouse offices around the nation, causing disruption in what is already a tense voting season.

US supreme court justice and Gloria von Thurn und Taxis found to have rubbed elbows with hardliner Leonard Leo

The supreme court justice Samuel Alito and a German aristocrat and "networker of the far right" from whom Alito accepted expensive concert tickets, are both linked to an ultra-conservative Catholic US group whose board members include the dark money impresario Leonard Leo and the founder of a hardline anti-abortion Christian group, documentation reviewed by the Guardian shows.

In 2018, Gloria von Thurn und Taxis, told the New York Times about attending a dinner hosted in Rome by James Harvey, an American cardinal and hardliner, and sponsored by the Napa Institute, a group founded by Timothy R Busch, a conservative Catholic businessman and political activist.

Leo, 59, is an activist and fundraiser who worked on the confirmations of all six rightwing justices who now dominate the supreme court, Alito among them. Now controlling billions of dollars in funding for rightwing groups, Leo is a director of the Napa Institute Legal Foundation, also known as Napa Legal Institute, and the Napa Institute Support Foundation.

A hulking steel plant in Middletown, Ohio, is the city's economic heartbeat as well as a keystone origin story of JD Vance, the hometown senator now running to be Donald Trump's vice-president.

Its future, however, may hinge upon $500 million in funding from landmark climate legislation that Vance has called a "scam" and is a Trump target for demolition.

In March, Joe Biden's administration announced the US's largest ever grant to produce greener steel, enabling the Cleveland-Cliffs facility in Middletown to build one of the largest hydrogen fuel furnaces in the world, cutting emissions by a million tons a year by ditching the coal that accelerates the climate crisis and befouls the air for nearby locals.

...

When campaigning for the Senate in 2022, Vance said Biden’s sweeping climate bill is “dumb, does nothing for the environment and will make us all poorer,” and more recently as vice-presidential candidate called the IRA a “green energy scam that’s actually shipped a lot more manufacturing jobs to China.”

Register to vote: https://vote.gov/

Former President Donald Trump and his running mate have prompted the false claims that migrants are eating people’s pets in the Ohio city, which officials have denied.

At least 33 bomb threats have been made in Springfield, Ohio, since false claims

which were pushed by former President Donald Trump and his running mate

surfaced about Haitian migrants' eating people's pets, the governor said.

All of the threats have been determined to be hoaxes. Some targeted Springfield schools, including elementary school campuses, Gov. Mike DeWine said Tuesday at a news conference after he met with city officials.

"Our children deserve to be in school. Parents deserve to feel that their children are being educated and that their children are safe," DeWine said.